Quit bickering and listen to voters

Saturday

Oct 29, 2011 at 12:01 AMOct 29, 2011 at 7:11 AM

An email I received recently said it all: "Oh for Pete's sake, the Ohio legislature is acting foolishly and without regard to voters." This was in reaction to our voting to hold a second primary in 2012, because Republicans and Democrats could not agree on the congressional-district maps drawn earlier this year.

An email I received recently said it all: "Oh for Pete's sake, the Ohio legislature is acting foolishly and without regard to voters." This was in reaction to our voting to hold a second primary in 2012, because Republicans and Democrats could not agree on the congressional-district maps drawn earlier this year.

When will we stop and listen?

The clamor for us to stop bickering and get down to business is louder and louder, and yet our behavior shows no sign of understanding. The public's esteem for its elected representatives is at an all-time low, and we still forge on in the same tired fashion. No wonder the public is turned off, frustrated and angry. It is time to stop and listen.

We have reached a point that demands a change. But change won't come if we don't require our elected officials to alter their behavior. The game of trying to finger-point the blame and manipulate public opinion needs to be replaced with a return to a "statesman" approach to problem-solving. Now, there's a novel idea: problem-solving. Not opponent-attacking.

In this instance, the problem has arisen because we are bound by a political process for designing our congressional districts that allows the party in power to design the districts to stay in power. And this year, as in the past, that was done with a design flair that has caused many in the country to say that the most gerrymandered districts in the country can be found in the new Ohio districts.

Last year, we had a window of opportunity to change the way that we design the districts, and both parties made an attempt to come up with a solution. But, time ran out, and an alternative was not developed. Now we are in the midst of the chaos and confusion that has resulted from the map-drawing, done as usual.

Perhaps, just maybe, we can use this difficult time to return to the task of developing an alternative approach that makes the map-drawing process more representative of our state. Ohio has been a state that fluctuates from leaning Republican to leaning Democrat in its elections. Our districts should reflect the balanced nature of the state.

Let's restore some civility to the process and find some common ground in developing a new system of map drawing that the public can have faith in. Let's start listening and responding.